


collision course

by lastwingedthing



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Future Fic, Multi, PostWar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 22:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17150018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/pseuds/lastwingedthing
Summary: Long after the war's ended, the Hellburner crew has a different kind of encounter with Union.





	collision course

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



> I couldn't resist the chance to write about the Hellburners, I hope you enjoy this!

“Well, hell,” Sal said at last; the station’s spin had just swung the planet below into the viewscreen’s field. “That’s no Downbelow. Don’t think it looks much Earthlike, either – what do you two think?”

That part was directed mostly at Meg and Paul, the ones who’d seen the most of the old motherworld, but Ben was the only one who answered.

“Oceans are all wrong,” he said, a little tightness in his jaw in the place he always carried it. “Don’t think I like it.”

“Don’t have to like it, cher,” Meg offered, coming in close and tucking her arm into the crook of his elbow. “Cyteen severely don’t care what a bunch of worn-out spacers think of the shade of their ocean.”

Hair brushed Ben’s cheek, a snowy white cloud; Meg had never bothered dyeing it after the old man put the riderships on rejuv, but since the peace she’d let it grow out wild and started braiding beads into it again, old rab style.

“Then why the hell did they bother to bring us out here?” Paul muttered, stepping up to Ben’s other side. Ben reached out, touched his arm very lightly.

Sal flashed a tired smile at him over Meg’s shoulder. “Cause Mallory said so, and none of us have managed to figure out that any day now we could retire and stop listening when she tells us to jump.”

“Speak for yourself – _I’m_ retiring right now. Moving to Mars tomorrow.” Ben’s grumble was an old refrain. Meg just grinned and kissed his cheek.

“Might not be so bad,” Meg said a little later, as Sal tucked herself against Meg’s free side and reached out to tug on the spiral bead hanging from the lock of hair closest to her. “Union sumbitches, sure, but historians – won’t be too heinous. And aren't we all about the brotherhood of man these days?”

The irony was clear in her voice; Sal just groaned and turned her gentle tug into a yank.

“Maybe,” Paul said, noncommittal. Technically the delegation to meet with the Union historians was volunteer only; following proper military procedure Mallory had rolled her eyes at the request, and then brought in her staff officers and enlisted for an all-hands meeting to tell everyone which of them would be volunteering. But she’d sent Graff as part of the group, which meant that she – and by implication Alliance command – were taking it seriously, and the Hellburner crew – all survivors from the foundation of the fleet, not to mention the ones who’d run the famous first test flight all those years ago – had known from the start that they wouldn’t be getting out of this mission.

Still – to be sent to Cyteen Station, right at the heart of Union – it hadn’t come easy. Running joint missions against the Mazianni with Union backup was one thing, this was quite another.

Wordlessly, communicating only with a quick touch, Ben and Paul switched places, so that Meg could tuck her head against Paul’s shoulder. Sal still had her arm around Meg’s waist, and behind their backs Ben and Paul's hands were touching, just slightly. Comfort, reassurance… this wasn’t exactly a battle, but they were in enemy territory, without the security of the ridership or _Norway_ at their backs.

At least Mallory had kept them together. She knew how rider crews got; after this long, no-one would dream of doing anything else.

“Excuse me, sers and seras, dinner will be served shortly in the West Gallery. Would you like me to escort you there?”

The voice was smooth and polite with just the right amount of friendliness and no sign of inappropriate interest in why they were standing so close, coming from a young attractive man in a crisp white uniform. The four turned, knowing what he was before they saw him. _Azi_.

Still, Ben managed a reasonable facsimile of politeness when he turned the clone's offer down. The man smiled and bowed, removing himself briskly with no sign of offence, though Meg did wonder briefly if he felt it.

“Anyone know where the West Gallery is?” Sal asked dryly, after a moment.

Meg reached out to flick her ear.

“ _I_ paid attention, cher.”

“Good for you,” Sal replied sunnily, ignoring Meg’s flick. “Longscan’s your job, not mine.”

“Nothing for you to shoot here, Aboujib,” Ben said, a warning. "We're here to play nice, remember?"

Sal grinned at him, teeth sharp and white.

“We’ll see.”

 

 

Dinner was about what they expected, stilted politeness coming up hard against awkward silence and losing almost at once. Quiet wasn’t so bad, though: the food was show-off good, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables to prove that Union agriculture could stand its ground against anything from Earth or Pell, and the silence just gave them more time to enjoy it.

Union reps may have blinked a bit when Ben and Paul, and Sal and Meg, swapped plates halfway through – but they should have known better than to serve real meat to real spacers. Meg and Paul enjoyed the extra, anyway.

“You both enjoy pork?” one of the academics asked finally, a little round woman with thick glasses and a cloud of hair to match Meg’s. She looked young, which could just be rejuv, but in her case it probably wasn’t.

Meg and Paul glanced at each other. “Don’t mind it,” Meg answered. “We were both born on Sol Station, so we got used to it young.”

“Oh, so you’re the ones from Sol!” she said, delightedly; the tone of her voice sounded kind of like Sal when she was elbow-deep in a new set of code for her weapons system. “I hoped I’d get the chance to meet you! What do you think of Cyteen so far?”

“Haven’t had a chance to see the planet yet,” Paul said, after a pause. “And we’re from Sol Station, not Earth.”

The round woman almost visibly wilted at even this mild rebuff; even her hair looked sad. Meg held out for a moment, then gave in.

“I suppose it’s hard to see the difference from this far out. Vids always seem to confuse the two.”

The woman smiled gratefully. “I ought to have known better, even if my field only starts outside Sol System. I’m just so excited to be here! This is the first time I’ve been off Cyteen.”

They all stared at that; of course if you thought about it logically, most humans alive had never gotten out of the gravity well at all, but it was still hard to confront the evidence of that fact sitting right across from them.

“How was the flight to the station?” Sal asked neutrally; not particularly friendly, but this woman was too soft a target for Sal’s usual bite. She always did prefer to play fair.

“Terrifying!” the woman said, but she sounded almost delighted by her own fear. “The way the shuttle shook going up, I didn’t think we were going to make it up here at all.”

“It’s never a smooth ride once gravity gets involved,” Meg agreed, leaning forward onto her elbows and smiling at her. “I used to be a shuttle pilot, running up and down the well between Earth and its stations, and cher, there were some trips I thought I’d lose both my wings before I made it down…”

“Got her,” Sal said low, leaning back in her chair to mutter into Ben’s ear beside her. “No shots fired, but she's still scored the hit.”

Ben grinned back at her. “Our Meg’s still got it.”

Seemed odd to think this little fluffy-haired woman was from the same place as the azi and the Union warships – was a terrifying Union scientist, no less, even if her field was human history not human genes and mindsets.

But Union was human, in the end. And Union weren’t even the enemy any more – that was the Mazianni, who until only a few years ago had been friends.

Made your head hurt to think about it too much, so it was easier not to. Easier to let this small woman’s eager friendliness slide over them, to sit back and enjoy the crisp vegetables and soft tender fruit, the dry fragrant wine that was light years away from the usual shipboard rotgut.

No matter who the enemy was these days, they were all still together. The rest was details: that was the one thing that still mattered.


End file.
